162 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



It is not my intention to dwell on the history of the 

 German universities, on the gradual growth of the univer- 

 sity system ; though every stage in that history is interest- 

 ing and important if we wish to understand the inner work- 

 ing and usefulness of this great organisation. Neither do 

 I wish to do more than just mention, as an equally impor- 

 . tant subject, the geography of the German universities ; 



Geographi- 

 cal distribu- how through nearly fifty larger or smaller towns, in the 



tion of the 



varsities' 11 " course f s^ centuries, learning and higher education have 

 been spread over the German-speaking countries of Europe. 

 These figures alone suggest the intricacy of the subject, 

 the many springs, the continual ebb and flow of the rising 

 tides of ideas, the many courses of thought, the many 

 schools of learning, the internal conflicts, the unavoidable 

 friction, the healthy competition and rivalry, the repub- 

 lican spirit, the impossibility of any creeping stagnation 

 of life, the absence of any lengthened tyranny of doctrine, 

 of an oppressive hierarchy, or of idols of opinion and 

 belief. I leave it to my readers to indulge in comparisons- 

 easily suggested by these different aspects, to fasten upon 

 the strong and upon the weak points of this great system 

 of the German universities. 1 What I wish to emphasise 



1 The migration of students as Marburg and Berlin in Zeller ; and 



well as of eminent professors from j the philological criticism of Gott- 



one university to another is one of j fried Herrmann locating itself in- 



the most important features of ! Zurich in his celebrated pupil and 



German academic life. Thus we biographer Kochly, and in Bavaria. 



find the imaginative tendencies of 

 the southern intellect represented 



through Thiersch. Jacobi came from 

 the lower Rhine to Munich, where 



by Hegel and Schelling in philo- also Liebig formed a centre of mod- 



sophy transplanted into the midst ern scientific celebrities. Savigny 



of the encyclopaedic and logical in Berlin and Thibaud in Heidel- 



sciences of the North, or into the ; berg represent the historical and 



centre of industrial Switzerland in ; philosophical schools of German 



the person of Vischer ; the theo- ! jurisprudence. Vienna for a long 



logical criticism of the Tubingen time was the most celebrated Ger- 



school wandering northward to ; man training - school of practical 



